


A is for Advance - The Incident

by Rinkafic



Series: Fernal 'verse [4]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-27
Updated: 2012-05-27
Packaged: 2017-11-06 02:57:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/413952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinkafic/pseuds/Rinkafic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lorne didn't expect to find someone in Atlantis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A is for Advance - The Incident

Evan Lorne had never expected to find companionship when he left Earth behind. He had cut ties, left the people and situations that had been causing him stress far behind and made off for a completely different galaxy. No one cared what he was and what he wasn’t out in Pegasus.

It wasn’t too terrible, serving under another fernal. Sheppard was fair and did not make too many demands on Evan. He had given the cartels a wide berth. Though the allaghi would take outsiders into their midst and extend their protection to other races. But Evan was content to stay on the outside, enjoying the quiet and lack of commitments to any governing body other than the SGC.

The botanist had ended up on his Gate team due to an error. It took eight missions for Evan to figure out that Parrish was dryas. It made sense and he smacked his own forehead when he realized it, of course a dryas would be involved in the study of plants, they were tied more closely to growing things than could possibly be explained to an outsider. 

After another four missions, Parrish asked what the hell Evan was, because he could sense something fernal about him but had been completely mystified as to what it was. When he confessed that he was vreite, Parrish reached out and clasped his hand, demanding to be tagged. Lorne didn’t bother telling him he’d done so on the night of their very first mission, Parrish was one of his responsibilities, he would not risk losing track of him.  
After that, Parrish sought him out frequently, inviting himself to eat with Lorne in the mess, sitting next to him at movie night, dragging him to game nights in the rec hall. One movie night, about four months after Parrish joined his team; Parrish followed him into  
his quarters and backed him up against the wall beside the door and kissed him.

“What are you doing?” Evan asked, grabbing David’s shoulders and pushing him back.

“I should think it was obvious. Was I reading this completely wrong?”

“I…” Evan couldn’t think of a suitable answer. He shrugged. “I hadn’t really thought about it.” 

David blinked in disbelief and ran a hand through his hair. “Not thought about it? Are you made of iron or something? I haven’t thought about anything else.” David leaned in and closed his mouth over Evan’s again. After another moment of stunned surprise, Evan pulled on David’s shoulders, deepening the kiss. Under his hands, David relaxed, the tension going out of him when Evan didn’t spurn the advance.

Breaking for air, Evan whispered, “I don’t really... with guys... before.”

“Don’t worry, I do,” David replied confidently, taking his hand and tugging him towards the sofa. Letting himself be led, Evan awkwardly sat down beside David, not certain what to do with his hands. 

“Slow?” Evan asked as David leaned in to kiss him again. He wasn’t opposed in theory, he had just never met a man he had been interested enough in to kiss. He’d never met one willing to look past his social status and parentage.

“As slow as you want. I can wait. You’re worth the wait, Evan.”

~*~

David might have surprised Evan, but he didn’t push him. True to his dryas nature, David was patient once he was confident that Evan was interested. More often than not when they spent an evening together they ended up on the couch kissing. They fell into comfortable patterns, David giving him plenty of time to get used to dating a guy while they got to know each other.

If they were found out, Lorne would be in trouble, there were still regulations about same sex relationships. Lorne suspected that Sheppard had an idea there was something going on, but his CO seemed to be looking the other way. 

He found out his suspicion was correct in the worst way he could imagine. 

“Lorne, you need to come with me,” Sheppard appeared suddenly - as he tended to do - in the doorway of Evan’s office, his expression serious and foreboding.

Nodding, Lorne closed down his computer and followed Sheppard to the transporter unit. When Sheppard pressed the dot near the infirmary, Evan grew nervous. “What’s going on sir?”

“There’s been an incident. I wasn’t certain I wanted to bring you in on it, even though security falls under your office. But since you aren’t allaghi, I think you can keep a clear head, despite how close you are to the situation.” The door opened and Lorne followed him out, wondering what the hell had happened.

Before they got to the infirmary, Sheppard grasped his sleeve and pulled him aside, out of the path of foot traffic. “Doctor Parrish was attacked this morning in the greenhouse by an unknown number of assailants.”

“Attacked? David? Is he alright?” Evan started to walk towards the infirmary but Sheppard held fast to his sleeve.

“Not exactly. They’ve patched him up and Kate Heightmeyer is talking with him now. Look, I know you’re close. I know you’re more than friends. He needs you to keep your head. I need you to keep a clear head for this. I’ve already had to pull Stackhouse and Sils off, they’re ready to start tearing people apart. You’re the only one on your team I can trust with this.”

Taking a deep breath, Evan forced himself to be calm. “Is this a fernal matter, sir?”

“I’m uncertain. I think we’ve got a hate crime on our hands, from what little David told me when I talked with him.” Sheppard was truly distraught about this, Lorne realized. 

“Did you catch them?”

“No. Another reason I’m bringing you in. Carson might have enough genetic evidence for you to do a tag.”

Grinding his teeth as he began to suspect what the extent of this attack might be and why there might be such evidence, Lorne punched the wall with his fist. “I’ll find them.”

Kate Heightmeyer came out of the infirmary and walked straight over to them. “Colonel, Major.”

“Doctor. How is he?”

“Under the circumstances, as well as can be expected. He wasn’t able to give me any more information to help with the investigation, I’m afraid. They had his eyes covered, he didn’t see anything, and doesn’t think he could identify anyone by their voices.”

Evan took a step towards the infirmary doors. “I want to talk to him.”

“Not a good idea. He needs some time. We’ve sedated him so he can rest comfortably.”

“He won’t see me.” It was not a question. Evan could tell by the way the doctor and Sheppard were avoiding his eyes that he was right.

Heightmeyer clasped his arm gently and gave it a sympathetic squeeze. “He won’t see anyone right now, Major Lorne. Give him a little while and then you can check in on him.”

“I need to see Beckett. I won’t disturb David, I promise.” He didn’t wait for permission, he strode over to the doors and went in search of the doctor. He walked quietly past a curtained off area and peeked through a gap where two frames met. David was sleeping. Even from a distance, Evan could see the bruises on his face as well as cuts that had been stitched on his brow and lip. He had an IV drip as well.

Turning away, he saw Doctor Beckett watching him and walked over to him. Beckett tossed his chin in the direction of David’s bed. “He has two broken ribs, a concussion and his left wrist was shattered. He’s multiple contusions and we might have to do surgery if the torn tissue doesn’t heal. There’s still a lot of swelling and we can’t tell how extensive the damage is just yet.”

“They... he was raped?” Evan whispered, hoping he had put the puzzle together wrong and that the doctor would set him straight.

“Aye,” Evan could see that Beckett was highly incensed.

“Colonel Sheppard said you had evidence. Give it to me,” he demanded gruffly.

Beckett reached into the pocket of his lab coat and withdrew four plastic baggies. “It was too mixed and contaminated for me to do a clear genetic analysis. I scented three, Stackhouse scented four before he went ballistic and Sheppard sent him back to quarters. You’ll keep your head, lad?”

He nodded tersely and opened each bag in turn, reaching in to touch the swatch of gauze and committing the trace to memory. He would never be able to be in the same room with these men without remembering this moment. As vreite, Evan was incapable of forgetting what he had just touched. 

Sheppard moved up behind him. “Just find them, Evan. I’ll send a team of SFs to you. Do not engage unless you have to.”

Unwittingly, or perhaps not, Sheppard had just given Evan the loophole he needed. He jogged out of the infirmary on the first trail. He found three of the four together in one of the gyms, sparring. They were new to the city, a trio of privates that had come in the last rotation. 

His locker wasn’t far, so he went and changed into sweats then grabbed a pair of Athosian sticks from a rack near the door on his way back in. “Show me what you’ve learned, boys,” he said, giving them a tight lipped smile. 

Cockey and probably still riding a little high on their morning’s activities, they eagerly attempted to show off for him. He was unimpressed. It took him less than a minute to knock them to the floor, gasping for breath and whimpering as they clutched their injuries. He was fairly certain he’d broken all of their noses, and one of them might find fatherhood an impossibility in the future. 

“Lorne to Sheppard. Tower, Gym, level sixteen,” he said as he wiped down the sticks and returned them to the rack. “By the way, you’re under arrest.” He couldn’t bear to be in the same room without beating them to a pulp, so he stepped outside and waited for the SFs to get to him and take them into custody. Once they arrived he set off in search of the last of David’s attackers.

He cornered the guy in the sublevel of one of the buildings near the tower. He tracked him through the dank corridors and finally corralled him in an unused room. When Evan heard the growling, he knew there might be some trouble. This one was allaghi, judging by the growls. He wondered if that had anything to do with why Stacks had gone nuts over the evidence. 

Lorne suspected that he probably should call for backup. Tangling with an enraged allaghi wasn’t a good idea for a lone vreite, even one in peak physical shape with hand to hand combat skills.

Luckily, Lorne wasn’t just vreite. Part of why he had left, the reason for most of his troubles back home had been because he was a halfbreed, an outcast, unwanted by either side of his family or community. 

He moved into the open. “C’mon. Or are you afraid to take on someone by yourself? _Ntais_ , you only pick on the ones who can’t fight back?” The insult hit home, as it usually did with lower ranking allaghi. A male in kin-form came hurtling out of the shadows with a bellow of rage, raking at Evan with long, sharp claws. 

Evan danced back, biding his time, watching his opponent. He was a strange civilian that was clad in a t-shirt and jeans. “Couldn’t get a guy any other way, so you had to force one?” Evan was deliberately provoking him, trying to figure out what he was dealing with.

Rat-kin. Crap, Evan hated rat-kin. He always felt like his skin was crawling after rat-kin. When the guy lunged at him again, Evan reached out and grabbed his arm, letting the momentum carry the asshole past him, helped along by Evan. The touch on the jerk’s bare arm had been enough, and though he hated the form, Evan knew it and quickly let the change happen. 

Surprised at the change in the dynamic, suddenly facing one of his own kin, the guy held still for a moment. Even grinned, showing sharp teeth, then leapt at him. They rolled across the floor, hissing and biting and clawing at each other. 

He’d been so far gone in the rage that he did not hear Sheppard come into the room. He did not hear the order to stand down. He felt the press of something against his back and then a jolt of electricity ran through him. Taser. The charge completely disrupted the temporary change and Evan lost hold of the shift, returning to his own form and slumping to the floor. 

“You said you would keep your head, Lorne,” Sheppard chastised as he hauled Evan to his feet. 

“I did. Are any of them dead?”

Sheppard laughed and slapped his shoulder. “No.”

“Stackhouse would have torn their throats out. You came alone, sir?”

“No, he brought me. And I would have. That is not one of mine,” Nate Stackhouse, head of the Atlantis allaghi cartel turned up his nose at the slumped form of the rat-kin on the floor, back in human-form thanks to the taser. Nate peered at Lorne and grinned. “Now I know why you smell funny. Halfling.”

“Are we gonna have a problem, Nate? I left Earth to get away from that kind of racist bullshit.”

“No. Just so long as you promise never to use your kleptis shit on me. I don’t mind the vreite, but the kleptis is just... no. Please, for both our goods. It would go very, very badly. Catastrophically bad, trust me.”

“I hate using it, so, I promise.”

Evan looked over to see Sheppard shrug elegantly. “Don’t care either way. Use it or don’t, just keep The Trust.”

Breathing a sigh of relief, Evan took a few steps away from the scum on the floor. “That needs to be tossed back through the Gate ASAP.”

“I’ll handle it,” Sheppard assured him.

~*~

David refused to see him for three days. Finally, Kate convinced him to let Evan in.

He sat at the bedside and the silence was awkward and tense in a way it had never been before. “So, there’s something I haven’t been telling you,” Evan said, scooting the chair close to the bed and leaning in so he would not be overheard.

“Oh?” David picked at a thread on the blanket with his good hand. His face was a mass of yellow and purple bruises. His broken wrist was in a cast.

“I’m halfling. I understand if you don’t want to see me anymore, I shouldn’t have kept it from you, I should have told you the first time you kissed me.”

Staring at him with an expression of disbelief, David’s jaw worked for a few seconds. “Not want to see you?” 

“Yeah. My dad was kleptis, my mom was vreite. I couldn’t deal with the politics at home, so I took the Atlantis mission when it came up. I know I’m damaged goods and not worth your time, no full blood would want me. I enjoyed being with you, David. I really did. I’m sorry I lied to you.”

“How did you lie to me?”

“By not telling you.”

David cuffed the side of his head. “I’m not prejudiced, Evan. I don’t care if you’re not a pureblood. I don’t even care that you’re kleptis. I love you for you, idiot.”

“You love me?” Evan smiled and leaned closer. 

“Yeah. But I’m the one that...” 

Evan reached up and touched a finger to David’s lips. “Don’t say it. You just said you love me, I’m still working on that.”

“I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to pick up where we left off, I don’t know what’s gonna happen,” David said in a small voice as he stared at his lap.

Lifting David’s hand to his lips, Evan kissed his knuckles. “We’ll take it slow and figure it out. I can be patient. I can wait. You’re worth the wait, David.”

 

The End


End file.
